Who needs to speak Chinese here???

This weekend just gone, the Doctor and I decided that we needed to buy a laser printer because our current ink jet printer was running out of ink too quickly. So as I am the more PC literate it was my job to go down to Computer Street and hunt down a bargain.

The first shop I went into had a few different mono laser printers (prints only black) around the NT$3,500 range. Then on the end of the isle I saw a colour laser printer for NT$3,590. After a bit of discussion with the salesman, it appeared to be a bargain but as it was the first one I looked at I decided to continue on and start comparing the prices.

The next shop I looked at had a similar colour laser printer but the price tag was almost double. Also in this particular shop the saleslady didn't speak much English but the conversation we did have was about (i) price is too cheap, and (ii) where did I see that price?

Off I went to the next shop and the saleslady did speak a bit more English. In fact between my extremely broken Chinese and her English, I was told that my Chinese was good enough to not use English. My problem is that the Chinese I feel confident using, I can speak very well; but anything else is really bad. But anyway, after a bit of discussion the original price I had for the colour was way too cheap and she quoted me a price approximately double being around NT$6,000.

After a few more shops, I had encountered the same thing. Colour laser printers are around NT$6,000 and anything cheaper may be a fake. So off I went back to the original shop to check it our further.

Oh the last shop, before I made may way back to the original (not the with the English speaking sales lady) that I visited, had made me a little suspicious. When I asked initially they told me a price, then when I showed them I had shopped around they had dropped it considerably. I think that being an obvious foreigner they increased the price a fair bit. But when challenged, they immediately dropped it. Being a foreigner does have its advantages, but in this case it wasn't.

Anyway, when I arriving back at the original shop, I looked at the price and it was NT$3,590. However, I checked the model number on the price tag and it was for the mono laser printer on the shelf below. Someone had probably knocked the special price tag off and put it on the wrong shelf. The price was too good to be true!!!

O'well, after a bit of discussion with the Doctor, we decided that we didn't really need a colour laser and would go for a mono laser printer. On Monday afternoon, we both headed back down to Computer Street and after quickly comparing prices along the way, we headed back to the lady who told me to use Chinese.

After a bit of haggling, we got the price for a NT$3,000 laser down to NT$2,550 including delivery on Tuesday. The agreed time would be around 1:00pm. This happened to be the time that the Doctor goes to his work.

On Tuesday around midday, I received a call with only Chinese spoken to me. I though the delivery was downstairs so off I went. No person there. Luckily I had the phone number of the sales lady who spoke English and enquired. I was told that the delivery would now take place at 5:00pm. OK no problem. Then during the cause of the afternoon, the delivery lady called me a couple of times with a message that I had no understanding of. I presume it was to tell me that delivery would be late. Anyway, the delivery lady arrives around 5:30pm - apparently after becoming lost.

Printer arrives and she offers to set it up - the delivery lady is also the printer engineer. I think OK because if it isn't working she can take it back with her knowing that it wasn't me that broke it. After printer has been unpacked and is ready to connect with my computer, the engineer lady wants to put a Windows driver CD into my computer. I don't use Windows so it will not be of any use. Trying to communicate this was funny, especially to see the look of astonishment on the engineer lady's face. After connecting the printer to my computer, my system found the printer straight away and I was able to print. The engineer lady still didn't believe me about printing and it took about 5 attempts to show her that the printer had printed my page without that Windows disc.

I couldn't let the engineer lady go without at least installing the Windows driver on one computer, and the Doctor does use Windows so I let her install the printer on his PC. Around that same time, the Doctor came home and the engineer lady was relieved to have someone to speak Chinese too.

In the end, the Doctor and I now have a brand new laser printer for about AU$100 where we can now print more than 10 pages without the ink running out.

I think from this experience I have learnt that speaking Chinese is not always necessary, but to find a bargain and have it delivered definitely does help.

Till next time, haveagoodone...